In-Flight Experience tips

Got a smartphone and T-Mobile service? Traveling on a Gogo-equipped airline flight? If so, you’ll be entitled to a free hour of inflight WiFi, on every flight, beginning on June 13. In addition, T-Mobile customers will enjoy unlimited texting, picture messaging, and access to Visual Voicemail on Gogo-equipped flights.

Good news, kids! Your parents were wrong: You can have chocolate for dinner. Well, so long as you’re flying British Airways.

Jet lag—the grogginess, dehydration, and general discomfort that follows a long-haul flight, has always seemed unavoidable. Especially now, as airlines pack even more passengers into dry, pressurized cabins and decrease their average seat size. Right?

A few months ago, New York Times Editor Damon Darlin wrote an op-ed suggesting that parents of rude or screaming children should give out small inflight gifts or “goodie bags” as a preemptive apology for their child’s behavior. Which begs the question, should parents have to apologize for traveling on an airplane with their child?

Do new free onboard snacks warrant a press release? JetBlue thinks they do.

Spirit Airlines is known for a lot of things, namely fees and quirky advertising, but one thing it isn’t known for is punctuality or service. According to the Department of Transportation, this past April, the most recent month for which data is available, only 73.4 percent of Spirit’s flights arrived on time—dead last among the airlines that report to the DOT. The average on-time rate for April was 84.5 percent. For 2015, the airline averaged a 69 percent on-time arrival rate. That’s bad.

Low-cost carrier Norwegian Air will introduce new direct service from Boston’s Logan International Airport to Copenhagen, Oslo, and London (Gatwick) this May, making it Boston’s largest international airline. Norwegian joins other low-cost carriers like WOW Air in targeting Boston as its gateway to Europe.

For the twelfth consecutive year, JetBlue tops the list of best airlines in North America. It ranks first among low-cost carriers in J.D. Power’s annual ranking of North American airline satisfaction. Alaska Airlines is ranked highest among traditional airlines for the ninth straight year. Southwest, which is grouped in the low-cost category, had the second-highest score overall.

Another day, another survey designed to put the airlines in rank order, from best to worst. And another win for Virgin America, which will soon be merged into Alaska Airlines.

American has announced that it will bring back a much-loved tradition from a bygone era of flying: plastic airline kids’ wings. The airline stopped handing these out sometime in the chaotic early 2000s, but ended the decade-plus absence last week.

According to multiple reports, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considering a ban on laptops (and possibly tablets) in the cabins of some or all U.S.-bound flights departing from Europe, citing security fears. Official announcement could come as early as Thursday, although some reports suggest the timeline may be weeks rather than days.

I cringe when the duty-free pitch starts at 35,000 feet, but according to a new study by HSBC, it’s the highlight of the flight for many travelers. HSBC polled thousands of flyers and found that Americans spend an average of $51.32 on in-flight purchases each time they fly, with the bulk of that splurge going to duty-free purchases ($32.53). Other top expenditures were for onboard Wi-Fi ($4.92), food ($11.68), drinks ($4.56), and alcoholic drinks ($4.76).

That’s the copy for American’s newly launched “World’s Greatest Flyers” ad campaign. The words scroll across the screen over slick images of desert trekkers, an apple-cheeked baby, multi-colored waves of grain. Music, insipidly pleasant, swells in the background.

In 2014, when JetBlue launched Mint, its premium lie-flat service, between New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco, it was mostly seen as a limited response to the premium services offered by the full-service carriers on those especially competitive routes.

JetBlue Airways burst onto the U.S. domestic airline scene 15 years ago with bigger and more comfortable seats, livable 34-inch seat pitches (pitch is the distance between seats), free inflight entertainment and TV in every seat, and generous checked baggage policies — and when it got a heap of slots at the JFK airport, many hardcore travelers flocked to the airline.

Iberia is adding premium economy cabins to the planes it uses for service to the U.S. The first converted plane, a 340, will start flying between Madrid and Chicago. Iberia will convert its other 340s and its 330s over the next year or so, and its new 350s will come with premium economy factory-installed.

Smaller seats, cheaper flights, passengers behaving badly—whether you believe flying has improved or gotten worse in recent years, until now the skies have remained a Wild West in at least one way: in-flight sexual assaults. The FBI said that in 2018 it saw “more reports of in-flight sexual assault than ever before.”

For the many travelers who can’t sleep in flight but also can’t afford an upgrade to the front of the plane, a new economy-class bed/seat design could revolutionize the way they travel. Italy-based seat manufacturer Geven debuted its Piuma Sofa — a concept that would turn economy-class seats into a lie-flat bed — at the Aircraft Interiors Expo last week, reports Flightglobal.

Good news: Fewer and fewer travelers are being bumped from flights. And according to the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), it isn’t just fewer, it’s the fewest on record:

American Airlines announced some new in-flight options this week, which is news that should interest the budget-conscious traveler. The changes were framed as being good—but upon unpacking, it’s clear the airline has a low bar for “perks.”

Are you among the many travelers who believe that overnight red-eye flights in economy class constitute cruel and unusual punishment? On most routes to Europe, you’re largely out of luck in finding any other option—until now.